


Ice Cream and Therapy

by lostinscotland



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, Post Episode: s05e20 Enemy at the Gate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:13:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22873039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostinscotland/pseuds/lostinscotland
Summary: Dave wasn't expecting to run into his brother in San Francisco. He wasn't expecting to be held at gunpoint either. At least they weren't both horrible surprises.
Relationships: Dave Sheppard & John Sheppard
Comments: 12
Kudos: 148





	Ice Cream and Therapy

_ Hey. I’m back Stateside for a while- I’ve got a bit of leave and thought I might come by, see you and Tanya and the kids. Let me know what works.  _

_ John _

Dave sighs as he looks up from his Blackberry. He and John have kept in touch since Dad’s funeral last year, but he wasn’t expecting to see his brother again so soon. And he certainly wasn’t expecting it to come out of nowhere. Normally John’s correspondence takes forever, and he said last month he didn’t expect leave any time soon. As much as Dave would like to see his brother, he isn’t ready to cut his family’s vacation short to do so.

Then again, John can probably come meet them in San Francisco just as easily as he could in Virginia.

“Daddy?” Chase says, and Dave smiles at his son. The boy’s face is mostly clean, but he’s somehow managed to get chocolate sauce in his hair. Dave is constantly astonished at how messy the kids continue to be, especially since their table manners are actually very good. He really would’ve thought eight was old enough not to wear your dessert.

“Yeah, buddy?”

“Are you working? You said you didn’t have to work this week.”

Dave’s not ready to let the disappointment creeping onto his son’s face ruin their outing. “No, just reading an email from your Uncle John. Would you two like to see him?”

Chase looks at his twin brother Mason, and both boys grin at Dave. John’s only met them once, and he doesn’t have any other uncles to compete with, but that doesn’t make him any less their favorite. After too many years of no contact with John, Dave is torn between happiness and guilty resentment at how much his sons adore their uncle. Tanya finds it amusing, but is worried about their new obsession with helicopters and jets.

John did promise to take the boys on a Ferris wheel, though, and Dave thinks that would be perfectly okay when it finally happens.

“Should I tell him yes, then?”

The boys both nod, so Dave composes a quick reply. He’s about to send it when he thinks better of the hasty decision, saves a draft, and texts Tanya. She’s at a spa, so she won’t answer right away, but John’s likely not expecting an instant reply anyway.

“Daddy,” Mason says, his voice full of a feigned innocence that immediately sets off Dave’s parental alarms, “are you gonna finish your ice cream? It’s starting to melt.”

A quick glance down shows his sundae getting a little runny, and Dave deliberately takes a spoonful before meeting Mason’s wide-eyed gaze. He knows the kid doesn’t need any more sugar - probably doesn’t even actually want it - but the little ice cream shoppe they found serves truly impressive sundaes and Mason has always enjoyed wheedling anything he could out of any likely target.

Dave will admit that he is often a likely target.

A quick scan of the shoppe doesn’t reveal any other parents being similarly conned. There’s a teenage couple giggling on the other side of the seating area. The only other adult in the shoppe is a man about Dave’s age. He has a toddler with him, but the boy is young enough to be utterly fascinated by his own small ice cream without any interest in the sundae the man is enjoying.

Dave turns his attention back to Mason. His son’s innocent face has gone slightly cartoonish in the few seconds he wasn’t watching. Chase is licking his spoon while watching to see if there will be any spoils his brother might be willing to share.

When the little bell above the door signals another customer, Dave doesn’t bother looking up. But when shouts and screaming erupt, his head snaps up to the spectacle at the cash register.

Three young men in jeans and hoodies pulled close around their faces hold guns pointed at the young cashier. For a second Dave’s frozen, and then he sees the other customer grab his little boy and duck further into his booth.

That’s all the prompting Dave needs to urge Chase and Mason under the table and duck under it himself, peering around the corner and blocking the boys with his body. He can feel their little hands clutching at him, but he shushes them before they can ask questions and watches the gunmen.

The cashier, who can’t be out of high school yet, is visibly frightened, but she’s opening the register with shaking hands. She doesn’t offer them the contents, but instead puts her hands up and backs away.

One of the intruders starts to shout, but the one closest to the register simply reaches over to quickly grab the cash. The third is watching, gun still raised, and when the register’s empty, he shakes his head.

“That’s it? There’s gotta be something else worth something.”

Dave feels the sweat creeping over his neck, but he’s reaching for his wallet and watch in the hopes that his wealth will make them go away instead of demanding more, when the third gunman vaults over the counter and grabs the cashier. She shrieks and tries to pull away, but he’s already circling the counter and dragging her with him.

The first man grins and turns his gun on the teenage couple. The girl shakes her head and grabs for her boyfriend, who grabs back for her but looks like he’s hyperventilating.

Dave knows his own face must be a vision of shock and horror, but all he can do is watch and pray these men don’t notice him or his sons.

A low curse brings his attention back to the other patron with a child. The man catches Dave’s eye, mouths the word ‘please’, then pushes the toddler into his arms and immediately slinks toward the commotion.

All three teens are pleading, the gunmen are shouting, and the little boy in Dave’s arms squirms and whimpers. Dave looks down at him, shifts his grip, and draws them all further under the table.

That’s all the time it takes for the whole situation to erupt.

Dave doesn’t see a thing, but two gunshots crack through the air, punctuated by a few screams.

He’s afraid to look.

Three little boys are clinging to him, sobbing, and as much as Dave wants to join them, he draws in a deep breath, prays to anything out there that he won’t have to physically defend these children, and peeks toward the shoppe.

All three gunmen are down. Dave can’t tell if any of them are breathing, but one of them has a visible bloodstain on his chest. The customer is crouched, checking pulses, a knife in his hand. 

The three teens are crying, the couple clutching at each other, the cashier kicking fallen guns away from everyone.

“You okay?” the man asks, and they all manage shaky nods. “Has anyone called 911?”

“I’ll do that,” the cashier says, looking grateful to retreat back behind the counter.

“Daddy?” Chase whispers.

Dave takes in a shaky breath and turns to look at his sons for the first time since the guns had appeared. “It’s okay now, boys. Stay there for a minute, okay?” Once he’s received nods from both boys, he shifts out from under the table, the toddler still crying in his arms.

The other man is there to meet him once he regains his feet. He smiles as he takes the little boy from Dave’s arms.

“Thank you,” he says, pulling the child close as he nods at Dave.

Dave nods back, unsure what to say. After an awkward moment, he falls back on well-instilled Sheppard manners. “I’m Dave.”

“Evan. And this is Danny.” The little boy doesn’t relax his grip on Evan in the slightest, but Dave certainly can’t blame him.

“My sons, Chase and Mason. Do you-” He’s about to ask what happens next, but stalls out.

Evan seems to understand. “Police should be here soon,” he says in a low voice. “I texted for backup, too, so hopefully that’ll come through. If you keep the boys in the seats they had before, they shouldn’t be able to see anything.” He turns and grabs for a bag from his abandoned booth, then produces a couple model jet kits, which he hands to Dave. “Should keep them busy, if they’re anything like my older nephews.”

“Thank you,” Dave says, and Evan nods one more time before moving back toward the other side of the shoppe, carefully keeping the toddler’s head averted from the bodies.

Dave quickly gets the boys set up at the table with the jets - it’s the exact sort of thing John would’ve given them, he thinks - and concentrates on keeping them looking at him and the toys, not the carnage. He feels bad for the teenagers. At least Evan’s kid probably won’t understand, even if he sees.

Sirens sound, and Dave barely has time to be grateful that police are finally approaching when the door opens again. For a second, Dave worries it’s another gunman, but the man who steps inside is even more of a surprise.

He doesn’t notice Dave, though, walking directly to Evan. “Lorne. Sitrep?”

Evan nods at the men on the floor. “They came in to rob the place.”

“And you couldn’t just let them take the money?” John asks with a pointed look at the toddler in Evan’s arms.

“They tried to take the girls.”

John’s face darkens as he looks quickly at the three teens.

That’s about when Dave’s shock wears off. “John?”

At least his brother looks just as surprised to see him. “Dave?”

Evan looks between the two of them, his eyebrow raised. “Sir?”

John ignores the other man and crosses the room in three strides. “What are you doing here?” 

Dave has accepted, since their estrangement ended, that he doesn’t know his brother as well as he thought. Plenty of that is because he let his father’s opinions on John inform his own, and his father had always believed John’s career was a way to blow off obligations. John could’ve used their family’s money to do that without needing to enter the military, of course, but Patrick had at least believed that John genuinely enjoyed flying. But John’s a lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force, and until this moment, Dave never really thought about what that meant.

It meant flying, yes. It meant that black mark John won’t talk about, when he’d flown a helicopter into enemy territory to rescue other soldiers. For some reason, maybe the flying, maybe the perpetual slouch and devil-may-care attitude, Dave has never really understood that John is a soldier too. He’s just met Evan, but his shift from mild-mannered customer to competent commando was less of a shock than seeing the hard officer’s mask on John’s face.

Dave is ignoring the corpses on the floor by focusing on his children and keeping them innocent. John appears to be ignoring them just because they’re dead.

The whole thing is unsettling, after an already disturbing afternoon, so Dave does his best to set it aside and answer the question. “We came for ice cream,” he says, gesturing at the boys, still intent on their jets. “We’re just lucky Evan was here.”

John looks down at the boys and smiles. “Yeah, he’s saved my ass on plenty of occasions.”

Dave wants to ask, but John’s already looking back at the scene across the shoppe. The sirens have finally reached them, and there are cops outside rushing for the door. Dave sees the moment John decides to join in child-distracting duty and smiles.

“So what have you boys got there?” John asks, sliding into a seat next to Dave and resting a hand on his shoulder.

“Uncle John!”

From there it’s a torrent of information, the twins talking over each other as they explain the entire day to their uncle. To Dave’s relief, the ice cream and the unexpected toys get a much bigger mention than the gunshots. And the boys are positively thrilled to learn that their benefactor is in the Air Force too, and sometimes flies with Uncle John.

Through all the chatter, John’s hand is a comforting weight on Dave’s shoulder, then the back of his neck. Maybe John is something of a stranger to him, but this is familiar at least. This is his big brother taking over when Dave has been pushed to his limits. And even though it’s been at least twenty years since the last time it happened, Dave is happy to let John handle anything right now.

Between Evan at the scene and John at their table, the cops don’t try to talk to Dave or the boys until the bodies have been removed.

The day isn’t over by a long shot, but his brother is here, and Evan promised to meet them for dinner once he’s finished with the police and returned his young nephew to his sister, and Dave thinks that if he doesn’t count that one hour, this could be the best vacation he’s had in a long while.

And if he decides later that means he needs therapy, well, the boys probably will anyway. He’s gonna count it as Dad’s money finally bringing him and John together.

He lets out a slightly unhinged laugh at the thought, and John squeezes the back of his neck.

Yeah, it counts.


End file.
